I wonder how long you have spent over the course of your life searching for the magic pill when it comes to weight loss? And how much money you have spent on miracle products that promised to make the weight drop off overnight – or at least not make the business of losing weight seem so tricky?
First things first, if you are someone who has spent a significant amount of times in slimming clubs, what you should know is that almost certainly you have been taught to eat the wrong things. And the community mindset seems to be about finding ways to cheat the diet. It’s no wonder people lose weight and put it straight back on again. Of course, actually eating the right things will help you lose the weight naturally, without calorie counting. And eating the way I show my clients has them naturally wanting to eat the foods that will love their body rather than deciding to seek solace in a bag of Haribo's.
What the slimming clubs miss is the vital mindset element of losing weight. Part of that is taking care of your self-care. That is the real secret sauce for losing weight, and here’s why.
If you are an emotional eater, no ‘diet’ in the world is going to help you deal with what the REAL issue is – your wonky relationship with food. You need to rewire your food brain because emotional eating or binge eating are major causes of diet failure but, unless you get to the root of the problem, you’re destined to yo-yo diet … forever.
Self-care is the recognition that only YOU can make yourself happy and that, if you make sure that you dedicate some time EVERY DAY purely for your own enjoyment, you will have more fun, you will be more fun to be around, and you will have far greater reserves to deal with the stresses of everyday life.
The miracle of self-care doesn’t end there. When you dedicate a small amount of time each day to your own happiness, there is less need to reach for the chocolate biscuits. I’m guessing you’re like many of my clients – you are so time poor that rewarding yourself with treat foods like cake and biscuits is the easiest way to show yourself some self-love.
My experience in running a nutrition clinic is that so little of why you eat what you eat has to do with nourishing your body. The far greater part is to do with how you feel about yourself and about life in general. Eating half a packet of chocolate biscuits is much easier than figuring out – not to mention getting – what you really need, which might be a way to de-stress, feel loved, get attention, kick back your heels and even sleep.
I am sure that you get what I am saying conceptually, but this is not enough for the magic to work. Just understanding won’t get you the benefits. You have to be in action. Are you doing AT LEAST three things EVERY DAY just because they make you happy? I thought not.
Self-care is a skill and it is a discipline. It is something that can be very easy to do (which is why it is something you often don’t bother to do). So, this week’s challenge: make a list of at least 20 things (even really frivolous things) that you LOVE to do just because they delight you. Some take hardly any time; some take a little longer. You don’t have to spend long for this to be effective. You have to write them down, too. Again, having this on a conceptual level is not enough.
I know from working with my clients that coming up with a list can feel difficult to start with. That’s why I’m offering you this little bit of inspiration: a printable self-care planner packed with ideas to get you started. It's right inside my Retreat-themed e-book, and you can grab that HERE.
You will need to keep your list somewhere handy so it is easy to turn to for inspiration.
I absolutely promise you that if you make a commitment to yourself to this business of self-care, your life is going to be even more fantastic than it already is.
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